USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Beloit > Past made present : the first fifty years of the First Presbyterian Church and congregation of Beloit, Wisconsin together with a history of Presbyterianism in our state up to the year 1900 > Part 2
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As the way is rather long I want you to remember these four road marks, so that just when you are getting tired out and hungry you may know that we are near the tavern.
March back first to the times and circumstances which immediately preceded and also produced this organization.
The early history of this church is so closely interwoven with that of the community that a complete account of either must include much that is common to both, because the pioneers of this church were also pioneers of the settlement.
The Vermonter, Stephen Mack, who in 1821 started a trading post on Rock river, four miles south of the Turtle, was undoubtedly familiar with the whole region. The first recorded visit of white men to this locality, however, was that made by soldiers of the Black Hawk war under General Atkinson, including Private Abraham Lincoln, June 30, 1832 .* On that day they marched through this Turtle village, then deserted by its Indian tinhabitants and camped during the afternoon on the prairie about two miles north. The Indian scout whom the soldiers saw when they started on the next morning, openly watching them fromn a high bluff on the west side of the river was very probably standing on the brow of Big Hill.
The next white man's visit occurred July 19, 1835, when William Holmes, Jr., and John Inman, prospectors who had lost their ponies, walked south across the prairie to the mouth of Turtle creek, and found here a soli- tary wilderness. They left the same day, and by July 23d had returned to Milwaukee, which had then only two white families. In the same month of July, 1835, soon after their departure, a French Canadian squatter, Joseph Thibault (pronounced Teebo) came here, and his log cabin was our first building. At this cabin, as they passed through the place on March 9, 1836,
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the family of Judge William Holmes, including two women and two girls, stopped a few minutes to warm up. That was the first recorded visit of white women. The youngest girl, Catherine Holmes, born August, 1819, now Mrs. Volney Atwood of Janesville, Wisconsin, says she remembers well the dirt floor of Thibault's cabin and its big fire place, built of sticks plastered over, with a large log burning in it. The Frenchman's two Indian wives took their children and went out of doors, giving up the whole cabin to their visitors. Thus the history of Beloit virtually begins with an act of hospitality.
The Pioneer member Arrives.
The first of our original members to reach this locality was Robert P. Crane. February 27, 1837, he and Otis P. Bicknell started from Chicago and in six days walked to Rockford, which then had a saw-mill, one board shanty, two log houses and a couple of two story frame buildings in process of erection. After a few days' rest, on March 9th they walked the nineteen miles up Rock River to this locality and a French half-breed ferried them over the swollen Turtle creek in his canoe. Here they were cordially wel- comed by the only white family, that of Caleb Blod- ROBERT PRUDDEN CRANE. gett. The Black Hawk war of 1832 had revealed the natural beauty of this region. Mr. Blodgett, coming here in December, 1836, with his large family and son-in-law, John Hackett, had bought for $200 the rights of squatter Thibault (Teebo). So in a general way he had located on the east bank of Rock river, as he estimated, about seven thou- sand acres of land. Indians and their squaws, he said, helped him roll up the logs for his house, which was built double, with two rooms, and stood on the bank of the river at the rear of the former A. P. Waterman hardware store, at present The Frederick Hardware Co., No. 322 State street.
Thibault's log cabin, sixteen feet by twelve, was near the bank of Tur- tle creek at the south end and west side of Turtle street, now State. Mr.
*Wis. Hist. Collections, Vol. XIV., p. 128
#My father, Benjamin Brown, several times pointed out to me the locality, having himself seen the signs of that camp in 1841.
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W. Moseley
The site of Blodget's cabin was at the extreme left of this view. Rock River, looking South-West towards the N. W. R. R. bridge.
Crane, who kept a diary of those earliest times, says that a grove of heavy timber covered the lower grounds, now the business part of the city, while on the higher were burr oak openings. There were no miasmatic swamps along our beautiful spring-fed Rock river and this whole region, my father often declared, was a natural Indian's paradise. He said to me once, "I don't wonder that Black Hawk fought for it; if I had been an Indian I would have laid my bones here rather than leave it."
The new England Company Invests.
Although these lands were surveyed in 1836, the government did not place them on the market until 1838. Those who came before that date were called Squatters. Mr. Blodgett had dug a race leading from Turtle creek east of the village along under the bluff and down what is yet called South Race street, and had set up the frame of a saw mill before the arrival of Dr. White, March 13, 1837. The next day White, as agent for the New England Emigrating Company, bought for $2,500 a one-third interest in Mr. Blodgett's squatter claim, excepting the saw inill. Of this farm land when duly entered at the government rate of $1.25 per acre, a tract one mile square adjoining and north of the state line, was reserved for a village and called at first "Turtle," and also "New Albany." Messrs. Crane and Bick- nell promptly bought the little 12x16 cabin of Thibault, who soon removed with his two Indian wives and his family to Lake Koshkonong. The village had then one other house, also of logs, whichi stood on the bank of Rock river near the present location of the east side paper mill. This was occu- pied by another of our pioneer families, that of Captain Thomas Crosby,
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who after a wagon journey of considerable hardship across Michigan and around the south end of Lake Michigan, arrived August 9, 1837. They were accompanied by Mrs Crane. Because of the sandy roads and exhausted condition of their horses, all the women had to fre- quently get out and walk, sometimes in rain and darkness. So Mrs. Crane trudged many a weary mile after the wagon, car- rying her babe in her arms. That infant son is now a state Senator, the Hon. Ellery B. Crane of Worcester, Mass. Such exposure and hardship was the apparent cause of his mother's death at the early age of thirty three. Sketch. "Near the tavern," (shown later), although imaginary, was suggested by her experience.
Thomas and Mrs. Crosby conducted during its first year the New England Company's boarding es- tablishment in a new MRS ALMIRA BICKNELL CRANE. frame building (S. E. corner of Turtle and Race), which later was called Bicknell's tavern. Mr. Crosby then entered land about five miles east,
WM. JACK.
became a successful farmer and lived to the age of eighty seven. He was one of our Trustees. His name was represented in the Wis- consin legislature of 1875, and for nine years in the Chairmanship of Rock County's Board of Super- visors by his son, George H., and is still represented on our church roll by his daughter, Cornelia.
In the same year, 1837, through Chicago, which then had less than six hundred inhabitants, he says, came farmer William Jack, who is now living in this city a member of our church. Feb. 18, 1847, he married Miss Phoebe Jane Tiffany who also became a member. Mrs. Jack celebrated her golden wed- ding in 1897 and died at Beloit, Dec. 28, 1889.
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.
In 1837 also came Charles M. Messer, surveyor, the father of Elder Fred Messer and Bradford Colley with his widowed sister, Mrs. Ann Jane Atwood (yet living here, aged eighty-eight), skilled nurse of all the pioneer babies, and Alfred L. Field, leading merchant, who became later a member of the Westminster So- ciety, West Bridge street. Mr. and Mrs Henry Mears (who with their son Lucian were afterwards for several years members of our church), arrived April 13, 1837, just in time to see the first boards made in Blodgett's saw mill. With some of those boards R. P. Crane promptly built himself a shanty at the N. E. corner of Turtle and Race streets, and there the first pub- lic religious service in the village was held on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1837.
In 1838 arrived Samuel B. Cooper and family; also in May with his family, John P. Houston, the father of our elder. He framed the Good- hue Flouring Mill, built on the
MRS. JACK.
race next west of the Blodgett saw mill. It was afterwards bought and carried on by his son George as the Houston Mill and stood directly south of the Russell residence, which is now 317 South Bridge street.
The First Bridge, 1842, a Coll Bridge.
J. P. Houston also helped frame our first wagon bridge across Rock river. A trestle structure, placed where the bridge A. L. FIELD. is now, which was then called the foot of School street. That bridge was built by the Beloit Bridge Co., Selvy Kidder, A. L. Field, C. F. H. Goodhue, Horace White, D. J. Bundy and others, in the summer of 1842, as a toll bridge. Soon after- wards, however (about 1845), this corporation gave it to the village on condition that it should be permanently maintained at public expense as a free bridge.
Mr. Houston framed the first bridge over Turtle creek. also our first R. R. bridge (North- western) across Rock River (completed Dec. 22, 1854), and in both cases was publicly com- mended for the thoroughness of his work.
MRS. SAMUEL COOPER.
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JOHN P. HOUSTON.
farmer, from New York, who located about a mile north of Beloit on the River road. In his large family, besides him- self and wife, Frances Chapin, there were three other of our charter members, his son Jesse and two daughters, Frances B. and Sarah M. Burchard. There were also Mary, Harriet, Louisa (now Mrs. H. D. Converse), John and Horatio C. Burchard. The last four and Jesse are now living in Freeport, Illinois.
Both parents died in Beloit and are buried here. That family was well supplied with books, which were a great attraction to reading friends in those days of no public
Rice Dearborn from Vermont reached Beloit in 1839, married Miss Lucena Cheney about 1841 and died on his farm south of the city in Dec. 1866. His wife and daughters became members of our church and because of his very kind na- ture Rev. Mr. Eddy used to call him the deacon out of the church. In May 1839, John C. Burr, a tinner and hardware dealer settled here. His mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Burr, was a charter member. Then from their native place, Framing- ham, Mass., in Oct. 1840, came Benjamin Brown, an enterprising merchant with his wife and daughter, Lucy. Also in the same year arrived Horatio Burchard,
RICE DEARBORN.
library. Mr. Burchard, like his special friend, Benjamin Brown, was both an earn- est christian and also a man of strong anti- slavery principles. His son Horatio C., while living at Beloit, prepared himself for Hamilton College where he graduated (at the age of twenty-four) in 1850 and then took up the profession of law. After re- moving to Freeport he became a member of the Illinois Legislature, 1862-65, and was in the U. S. Congress from 1869 to 1879. He was then appointed Director of the U. S. Mint, an office to which his distinguished services in the interest of safe currency gave a new degree of honor.
In 1840 also came Charles Peck, builder,
MRS. RICE DEARBORN.
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and family. and in 1841, from Michigan, David Merrill, music teacher, the father of Rev. C. D. Merrill.
Five of the names thus far given, Crane, Brown, Burchard, Peck and Merrill, are to be found on our church register of elders.
naming the Village.
The early villagers, disliking Caleb Blod- gett's name for the settlement, New Albany, as too fast and the Indian name, Turtle, as too slow, held a public meeting at the Beloit House in the fall of 1838 for the purpose of choosing something better. After many names had been BENJAMIN BROWN. 1803-1890. proposed and voted down, a committee of three was appointed to con- sult and report some final name. R. P. Crane's account, published in our Boloit Journal Feb. 1878, gives as that committee, Col. Johnson, Caleb Blod- gett and Mr. Allen. L. G. Fisher Esq. of Chicago, in a letter published by the Beloit Journal March 28, 1878, says that the committee chosen were Major Charles Johnson, Horace Hobart and him- MRS. BENJ. BROWN. 1810-1869. self. William Jack who attended that meeting and is now living in Beloit, states that Mr. L. G. Fisher was certainly a member of that committee. + Fisher adds that when this committee had retired to a shanty near by, one member proposed drawing
letters of the alphabet by lot. Major Johnson suggested Ballote as a sup- posed French word, meaning handsome.
As many of the early settlers had pleasant remembrances of Detroit Mr. Fisher proposed that they have a name sounding like that and spoke the words, Balloit, Beloit. The latter name was approved in committee, reported to the settlers by Major Johnson and unani- mously adopted.
By an act of the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature December 7th, 1836, Rock County had already been formed. It took that name from the Big Rock on the north side of Rock River at Mon- terey (South Janesville), which marked a fording place and was an old indian land mark.
L. G. FISHER, ESQ.
+NOTE. Possibly there may have been two committees appointed by different por- tions of the assembled settlers
W. F. B.
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H Congregational Church Formed.
After Rev. William Adams of Pecatonica, now Rockton (where he started a church in March 1838), had preached in this settlement every
2026490
HON. HORATIO C. BURCHARD, M. C.
FRANCES B. BURCHARD.
other Sunday for fourteen
months, he or- ganized in Caleb Blodgett's house
Dec. 30, 1838, a
Congregational
church o f twenty -four members. These included all our
pioneers. (That house faced School street and stood at the N. E. corner of School and Turtle, now Main. Mr. Ad- ams was the father of Wm. W. Adams, D.
D., your pastor. ) Meetings were
JOHN BURCHARD.
private houses until the fall of 1839 when, by voluntary sub- scription, a wooden school house was built, in which were held nearly all public meetings whether religi- ous or political, until churches were erected. It stood a little north of the northeast corner of School and Prospect streets until it was re- moved about 1853 to make room for the
brick building which now oc-
conducted in cupies that location. There in 1842, amid many jeers from other voters, Benjamin Brown voted the first anti-slavery ticket offered in Beloit and was
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followed by Deacon H. Burchard and Mr. Tuttle. ( Father having written all three tickets.) So was started here a little branch of that Liberty party which under its later name of Republican finally accomplished the down- fall of slavery.
There was one other earlier school building, private property, named after a favorite teacher, the Aunt Jane Moore school house, which stood on Race street and was the place where our church was afterwards organized. Arriving in October, 1840, Benj. Brown and family roomed and boarded first in Alfred Field's house at the west end, south side of Race street, and soon after- wards in that of Methodist Rev. Stephen Adams, a house which stood where the gas tank is now. During their first night in this village the howling of prairie wolves on the bluffs just across the river almost prevented sleep. My father's little store, kept 1840 to 1847, was on the east side of Turtle street, about where George Rosenberg is located (321 State ), and between the Adams house and that store front he had for two or three years an almost direct and uninterrupted path through the brush. Later he removed his family to what is now 549 Broad CHARLES PECK. street, where the writer was born in 1845.
In 1842 Mr. John Hackett began the erection of a substantial stone house on the west side where the High School building now stands. The basement of that house was occupied during the Winter of 1842-43 by our Charles Peck with his wife and four children. By an existing contract dated December 15, 1842, Mr. Peck agreed to finish and complete the house by May 1st, 1843, and did so, making this the first house built on that side of the river.
In September, 1840, when Rev. Mr. Adams ended his labors and Rev. Dexter Clary came, the First Congregational church numbered about sixty members and included in its society all those who have been mentioned.
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Chicago Photo-Gravure Co.
ROCK RIVER, ABOVE THE LOWER BRIDGE, BELOIT, WIS., LOOKING NORTH-EAST.
THE FIRST STONE CHURCH.
REV. DEXTER CLARY, D.D.
MRS. SARAH M. CLARY, 1807-1899.
In 1842-'43 they unitedly built the first stone church on the northwest corner of Broad and Pros- pect streets at an es- timated cost of about $4000. In accordance with the convention arrangement of 1840, formed to save home mission funds, Con- gregationalists and Presbyterians were united in this church and it was blessed
with early revivals. (My father owned two pews in it. There, in 1843, he first joined the church, and there his infant son was baptized by Mr. Clary, their first pas- tor, in 1845. )
*Hon. S. T. Merrill says that this church when completed in 1843 "was the most stately and grand house for christian worship then in the
HON. S. T. MERRILL.
37
territory of Wisconsin." It undoubtedly had more influence than any other instrumentality in locating the college in Beloit. In its two spacious base- ment rooms the Beloit Seminary, chartered in 1837, found a home till the Summer of 1849, when it was merged into the college as its preparatory department. That school in the church basement was first taught by a Mr. Loss, and afterwards by Sereno T. Merrill, who there in 1847 instructed the first Freshman class of Beloit College. During later years some of us Pres- byterian boys and girls spoke our first pieces there.
The register of the Seminary for the last year of its existence contains the names of 129 male and 67 female students of whom there are now living in Beloit, Geo. A. Houston, Richard Burdge, John E. Houston, Mrs. T. B. Bailey, Mrs. Z. Martin, Mrs. Wm. B. Strong, widow Clara L. Newcomb and widow Sarah Rogers.
+In 1844 Benjmin Brown bought, for a suburban home, lots 5 and 6, Block 59, on Turtle street, then largely occupied with dwelling houses. There in 1845 he built his brick house, which the Beloit. Journal described as a "beautiful residence, the most delightful location in the village." Its front facing east at the foot of School street, now 328 and 330 State, was conspicuous because of four tall white Corinthian columns; its doors were ever open to all traveling ministers and other guests of the church, and there also our Presbyterian Society was first formed. After the house was destroyed by fire, February 5, 1871, that locality, then an established busi- ness center, was solidly built up with a continuous frontage of stores.
In 1844, the dam on Rock River having been recently made, the first Chairman of our Society, Augustine J. Battin, erected the first building for machinery on the west side of the river and with his son-in-law, N. B. Gaston, who has just cele- brated his 89th birthday, started the scale factory which is still conducted there. During the same year, 1844, another charter member, David Merrill, built upon his farm on the west side a stone house which is now to be found on the North-west cor- ner of E and Third streets.
Early Fire in Beloit.
The business center of Beloit was then E. D. Murray's store, ELIJAH GRIDLEY STRONG, D. JAN. 1859. SARAH ASHLEY PARTRIDGE, D. JUNE 1865. southwestcorner of Turtle and Race streets (where the Grand Hotel is.) When that store burned down on the morning of April 6th, 1854, our Mr. A. J. Battin re-
* Beloit Free Press, January 23, 1897.
+NOTE .- See Kelsou's plat of 1838, first map of Beloit, on page 43.
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TRY GOODS BORTE BRILWY C
SHEA TAILOR BRANCH STORE
NOS. 328 AND 330 STATE STREET ARE AT THE LEFT.
BENJ. BROWN'S BLOCKS, BELOIT, WIS., TORNADO RUIN, 1883.
JAMES WOODWARD STRONG, D.D. L L.D., Prest. Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.
formed was the beginning of our Beloit Fire Depart- ment. Just across the
street east from Murray's corner, stood Bicknell's tavern, afterward the Be- loit house, where, begin- ning with September, 1849, Frink & Co.'s four- horse stages drew up every day, and while that exciting spectacle re- mained new my one great ambition was, to some. time grow up and be a stage driver for the Beloit House. Temperance workers should remember that in June, 1851, Mr. E. G. Strong of Montpe- lier, Vt., (father of Dr. H. P. and Gen. Wm. B. Strong, a daughter, Mrs. Rolfe, and President
newed his youthful ex- periences as a New York city fireman, and with a little garden-engine saved Mr. A. B. Carpenter's house, which stood very near the store on the south. It was a narrow escape for Mrs. Carpenter, who was ill, and also for her very young infant daughter, Addie, now Mrs. Charles B. Salmon. I remember seeing Mr. Battin standing at the very edge of the fallen, blaz- ing store with nozzle in hand directing the tiny stream of water upon Mr. Murray's safe, which lay in the midst of the fire, until, by that means and by a bucket brigade he organized, the flames were subdued. The little fire company which he then
HENRY PARTRIDGE STRONG, M.D.
40
-
0
LOOKING SOUTH-WEST ACROSS THE DAM FROM THE TOP OF THE WATER TOWER, BELOIT, WIS.
James Strong) reopened that hotel as a Temperance House. Mr. and Mrs. Strong both died in Beloit and are buried here. James W. Strong was married in the Presbyterian church, Beloit, September 3, 1861, to Miss Mary Davenport, the daughter of one of our elders. The record of these sons however, belongs properly to the larger history of our city. Dr. H. P. Strong, who married Miss Sarah Clary, became prominent in the public educational interests of Beloit, and his name, since his death, has been given to our East side public school. William B. Strong, who was fourteen when his parents came here, began in youth as a railroad telegraph operator, grew to be General Western Agent of the Northwestern Railroad, served in suc- cession the Burlington and the Michigan Central, and in 1881 became Presi- dent of the Atchison and Santa Fe Line, and brought under his management about 8000 miles of road. He married Miss Abbie J. Moore, who was born at Beloit, December 18, 1838, in a temporary shanty on what is now Public Avenue. She was the first girl born here to any family of the New England Company. In his later years Mr. Strong has come back to this home of his youth, bringing here the wealth, public spirit, honorable character and ability, which, when rightly combined, make the leading citizen.
WILLIAM B. STRONG.
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*The lithograph map here given represents Kelsou's survey of 1838, the first plat of the village. Dr. White seenis to have lad the lots laid out by Mr. Kelsou, an eastern surveyor, who did not settle here. On this map the lots belonging to the ive men whose names are given, are designated by different colors which the photograph does not separate. I have there- ore indicated the different holdings by the initial letter of each man's name. Kelsou's notes were obtained and used by Mr. Charles Messer. The original of this map belongs to Mrs. Azuba L. Carr of Beloit, the daughter of Israel Cheney, one of those whose names are given upon it. The canal was to have been started about three miles north-east, on Turtle Creek, at the Hart farm. *Possibly that survey was made in 1837.
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Early Events and Scenes in Beloit.
During those earlier years the triangular lot, where Parker's Block (now Strong's) and the Postoffice Block stand, was the south-west corner of the public landing. Most of it also was a rough deep gulley, through which poured all the drainage of School Street. The north-east corner of Benjamin Brown's lot was about where the middle of East Bridge Street is now, be- tween Bort's corner and Emerson's drug store. After the bridge had been given to the village, in order to have a straight approach to it front School Street, the Trustees of Beloit, by a mutual arrangement dated March 14, 1846, cut off the north-east corner of Mr. Brown's lot and gave him in ex- change a warrantee deed of that triangular portion of the public landing which was between East Bridge Street and his north line. (See the old Kelsou plat, given on page 43). He promptly filled up the unsightly spot with about a thousand loads of gravel, ( brought from that hill in the Public Square over which extended East School Street, an elevation which has since been all carted away, ) and built on that south side of East Bridge Street several small wooden buildings. One of them was for a post-office, and the Beloit Journal of January 15, 1852, proudly says, " Neighbor Bastian has removed the post-office to a new building near the bridge, built for the purpose by Mr. Brown. We now have as good a post office as there is in the State, if not the best." But a Mr. Gardner, whom my father had sternly rebuked for his wrong doing, sought some way to injure him. He learned that R. P. Crane, who first entered this tract, had never conveyed the public landings to the village. Its Trustees therefore had no title, apparently, and their deed to Mr. Brown being worthless made his title void. Gardner for fifty dollars obtained a quit-claim from Crane, and thus, having a shadow of title, with the able assistance of Matt. H. Carpenter, Esq., gained the land. (Reported in 2 Wis., 153). Mr. Brown having given value and received none, had then a clear case of recourse upon the Trustees of Beloit, but for some reason did not claim his rights.
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